Man Follows the Sun

Man Follows the Sun
(Человек идёт за солнцем)
Man Follows the Sun; (Человек идёт за солнцем)
	Film poster
Directed by	Mikhail Kalik
Written by	Valeriu Gagiu; Mikhail Kalik
Starring	Nika Krimnus
Cinematography	Vadim Derbenyov
Edited by	Ksenia Blinova; Nikolay Chaika
Music by	Mikael Tariverdiev
Production; company	Moldova-Film
Release date	1962;
Running time	72 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Man Follows the Sun (Russian: Человек идёт за солнцем, translit. Chelovek idyot za solntsem) is a 1962 Soviet drama film directed by Mikhail Kalik.^[1]^[2]

The film follows a little boy through the megacity (Chișinău) on his pursuit to get the sun, because, as another boy tells him that going straight he will be able to get the sun, walk around the globe, and return to the place of his departure but from a different side. The world of adults and the spaces they inhabit are viewed from a child's perspective.^[2]

Plot

The story follows a single day in the life of a child, filled with an extraordinary range of experiences as seen through a child’s eyes.

Inspired by the idea that one could walk around the Earth by following the sun and return to the same spot, Sanda sets out to test this theory. Along the way, he encounters various people and events: a lottery ticket seller, a scientist from the Institute of the Sun, a teenager with a magnifying glass, joyful fathers outside a maternity hospital, a girl with colorful balloons rushing to a date, a bustling market where a boy shares a ripe watermelon, a stunt motorcyclist performing a death-defying trick, a hero who turns out to be a timid ceramic collector fearing his domineering wife, a truck driver opposed to his sister’s dates with strangers, construction workers who kindly share lunch with him, a policeman scolding him for his independence ("today you're chasing the sun, tomorrow you'll be scalping movie tickets"), a girl watering sunflowers and her boss who orders them uprooted, a shoeshiner who lost his legs in the war, a boy blowing soap bubbles, a funeral procession, golden fish in a city fountain, a sunset, an evening café, and a lullaby song.

At the end of his exhausting day, a passing military musician picks up the tired boy, listens attentively to his account of the endless day and unique adventure, and walks him home.

Cast

Nika Krimnus as Sandu
Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev as Nikolai Chernykh, motorcycle racer
Tatyana Bestayeva as Elya, motorcycle racer's wife
Anatoli Papanov as manager
Nikolay Volkov as lottery tickets seller
Georgiy Georgiu as Koka, hairdresser
Valentin Zubkov as military musician
Lev Kruglyy as truck driver
Valentina Telegina as woman reading a letter
Larisa Luzhina as Lenutsa
Dumitru Fusu as Rike, inspector of Militsiya
Maxim Grecov as Lev, shoeshiner
Viktor Markin as happy father
Georgios Sovchis as Prince of Orange, construction worker
Georgiy Svetlani as fan de foot
Iosif Levyanu as taxi driver

Reception

Administrative measures were taken against Mikhail Kalik because one brief erotic episode.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b Peter Rollberg, George Washington University (2016). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 344. ISBN 9781442268425.
^ ^a ^b Lida Oukaderova (2017). The Cinema of the Soviet Thaw: Space, Materiality, Movement. Indiana University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780253027085.

External links

Man Follows the Sun at IMDb

This article related to a Soviet film of the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[Rollberg-1] Peter Rollberg, George Washington University (2016). Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 344. ISBN 9781442268425.

[Oukaderova-2] Lida Oukaderova (2017). The Cinema of the Soviet Thaw: Space, Materiality, Movement. Indiana University Press. p. 102. ISBN 9780253027085.

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